Delores Cornwell Hogan, died peacefully on July 2nd, 2026, following a devastating stroke; she was 93.

Dee-as she was known to her friends and family-lived a life of adventure for over 64 years with the love of her life: her husband Hogan (who predeceased Dee two years ago).

As the wife of a career Marine, Dee followed Hogan back and forth across the United States, across the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii and farther west to Japan; eventually landing back in the Washington D. C.-area before settling full-time in Emerald Isle in 1992, and finally in Lands End in 1993.

Anyone who knew Dee knew she was an inveterate lover of all animals.

As a girl in Virginia, her menagerie included a revolving cast of dogs and cats, a horse named Billy and a trio of juvenile skunks.

Throughout her life, Dee found great joy at the stables at Camp Lejeune, monitoring sea-turtle nests in Emerald Isle, and in the later years of her life enjoying the manic behaviors of the birds, squirrels and ducks which she fed on her back deck. It is a fair observation to state that Dee’s animal friends had done a masterful job training her to keep them well-stocked with whole corn; so well trained was Dee, that it begged the question: “who is the mistress, and who are the pets?”-a riddle for the ages!

As with Hogan, Dee’s time on Oahu in the early 1960’s was one of the happiest periods in her life.

For a young woman raised in Jim Crow Virginia during the height of segregation, multi-cultural Hawaii was revelatory and a breath of fresh air—in Hawaii, Dee worked with other federal employees whose ethnicities, cultures, fashions and cuisines she embraced with gusto.

Dee never had a bigoted bone in her body, and for her, Hawaii affirmed that character, morals, ethics and “what’s inside” mattered infinitely more than the color of one’s skin.

Even though Dee traipsed dutifully behind Hogan as he bounced from one base to another Dee was proud of her ability to deftly navigate a 30-year career as a federal employee; her career trajectory was seldom linear, but she did manage to claw out for herself her own professional identity separate and apart from Hogan’s Marine Corps career.

Dee acknowledged that although there were occasions when she in lived in dread during times of war and conflict, her life as a Marine wife was rather charmed.

Decades of calling base maintenance when a refrigerator was on the fritz, when an air conditioner needed attention or the quarters needed a cord or two of firewood conditioned Dee to expect the same type of quick response when calling plumbers or electricians in the “real world”.

Her usual pronouncement when awaiting a tradesperson or service-visit was “Where are they? They’re late!”-a wee bit of diplomacy and tact was required to remind Dee that the civilian world operated to a rhythm very unlike the maintenance crews at Camp Lejeune, Quantico or Camp Kuwae on Okinawa.

Death is never easy to understand or comprehend, but solace is taken knowing that Dee’s stroke was fast and that she was not in pain as she finished her life’s remarkable journey.

As Dee’s life ebbed away on Wednesday night, and into Thursday morning, she was serenaded via SiriusXM by her favorite singer: Frank Sinatra. Dee was lucky to have seen Sinatra perform live on three occasions and having his music in the background during her final moments hopefully gave her comfort and a modicum of joy.

Dee will be greatly missed by those whose paths she crossed during her nine decades of life; let’s hope that when Dee is remembered in the months and years ahead in our minds’ eyes we see her at her apogee: long legs in a sexy New Year’s Eve dress, on the back of an elephant in Thailand, or on the beach at Kailua: carefree, happy and with the man she madly loved for 64 years, and for whom she grieved deeply following his death in 2024.

Dee is survived by her only son, R. J. Hogan, and the family’s beloved dog Bella.

No services are planned at this time; a community remembrance event may take place later in the year.